Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Infinity War spoilers. When the whole world was a battleground, which apparently it had become, then nowhere was safe. Clint, away from the battle itself, learned this first-hand when his son began to disintegrate in front of him.
1. Chapter 1

_Infinity War spoilers and speculation, just a heads up._

 _I don't own anything Marvel related aside from a few T-shirts. No characters or rights, sadly._

* * *

It had been a normal morning in the Barton household. On second thought, maybe normal wasn't quite the right word. It was the weekend, meaning the kids were home from school, so they were having pancakes for breakfast, and it was more special than most mornings for that very reason. That, and the fact that the day before, New York had been attacked once again. This time, it had been a giant floating ring that had caused some destruction before it flew off. Clint hadn't missed the reports of Iron Man and Spiderman being confirmed at the scene. What had happened to them, he didn't know.

But he had taken one look at his wife, who was watching the same news report as him, and thought of his kids in the other room, all playing together, and knew he couldn't go. The first reason was that taking some actual family time away from the insanity of his other life had actually been good for all of them. The second reason was his strict house arrest (which of course he could get out of at any time and Ross would never be any the wiser) and the third reason was that he didn't have a direct way to get to New York in any amount of time that would be able to do any good.

He had amended that he wouldn't go, and had told Laura as much, but he still sat up at night, multiple phones set out on the table in front of him, the news on the television but turned down low so the rest of the house could sleep. He never got a call on any of the phones, so his former teammates were probably busy, they had to be, because he refused to think of anything worse.

The news kept replaying the same footage over and over, since officially, nothing else had happened since. Clint knew that was probably because there was more coming, but for the moment, things were suspended in an air of grim anticipation. Speculation was running rampant, people were connecting it to the incident six years ago, and panic was starting to spread.

The farm was quiet and dark outside, with frogs croaking echoing out across the fields. Every so often, a gust of wind would rustle the trees, but other than that, the air around them and the house was still. It was peaceful, more peaceful than anything Clint had ever known. Which is why he should have known that it would never last. He did know it, somewhere deep down, but accepting it was another matter. Unfortunately, for him, accepting it came that following morning.

Laura was in the kitchen with Lila making pancakes, Nathaniel was in his play pen area the next room over, and Cooper was up with Clint in his room, doing some last minute math work before they went down for breakfast.

It was normal, peaceful, and perfect. _Was_ ended up being the important word in that sentence.

The peace ended when all of a sudden, Cooper dropped his pencil. Clint looked up from where he had been doing the work on his own piece of paper. His son's name died on his lips as Cooper stared at his hand, utterly terrified, as it began to fall apart and float away, as if it were made out of ash.

"Dad?" he asked, voice choked with fear. In the second it took him to turn his head and lock his wide and scared eyes with his father, the rest of him began to fall away until soon, there was nothing left but a pile where his son had once been.

Clint sat next to it, completely still, trying to force himself to wake up from what had to be a nightmare. It had to be. It absolutely had to be. The waking up came from a scream and a shatter downstairs. "Daddy!"

Lila's voice carried throughout the whole house and roused Clint to his feet, still in shock as he stepped around the pile before sprinting down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Lila!" he yelled back, skidding into the room, and finding his daughter, still whole, tear marks staining her cheeks, staring at the stove. "Are you okay? Honey, what happened?" Clint knelt down, checking his daughter over for any signs of injuries or clues as to if she was about to fall away next. His eyes stayed on her for a few seconds until he was sure that she wasn't smoking or falling apart. But she was still there, and she was pointing to the kitchen, whispering "mommy" under her breath. It was a sight Clint had never wanted to see. Her eyes, wide with fear as Cooper's had been only a minute ago, were fixed on whatever she had seen.

He slowly got up and peeked around the cabinets, swallowing hard when he saw a smashed plate on the ground next to a few pancakes and a small pile of ash, not unlike the one upstairs. It didn't take a genius to realize that it was what remained of Laura. He had promised her he'd be down in fifteen minutes, tops, and to get things started while he and Cooper worked. Clint almost slid down to his knees right then and there, but the fact that his daughter was still watching, scared out of her mind, kept him upright. If he crumbled and let her see, she'd never recover.

"Daddy, what's going on? Where's mommy?" she asked through choked tears, standing absolutely still where she was, as if moving would make her disappear too.

Clint took a few steps into the next room and looked at where Nathaniel should have been. He didn't look for another pile of ash when he couldn't see his son in the pen, he couldn't bear it. A few flecks spread out over the blue blankets and stuffed animals were all the answer he needed.

"I don't know, sweetheart, but we're going to figure it out. Everything's going to be alright," he said, coming back to his daughter and scooping her up into a hug. He'd been putting on masks all his life, a few months out of the field hadn't taken away that ability. And now, he had to wear one of calm reassurance, even when on the inside his mind was going a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out what was going on and how he could get his family back. "But hey, look at me," he pulled back ever so slightly and smiled at her before he wiped a few of her tears away, though it did no good as they kept coming. "Everything will be fine, Lila. How about we go get shoes on and we'll call Auntie Nat from the road, okay?"

It took Lila a second before she nodded. She moved to head up to her room, which was up the stairs, past Cooper's room where he no longer existed. Clint very gently caught her arm. "I'll grab them, you stay right here," he instructed. Lila nodded again, seeming to understand in some capacity that Cooper was in the same state as her mother and brother. While her sobs had quieted, new tears welled in her eyes.

Clint wanted nothing more than to make them go away, to make everything about this go away, but he couldn't, not right now. He was going to fix this, and then he was going to kill whatever sick bastard had made his family go through this. Instead, he headed up the stairs and grabbed Lila's small emergency duffel bag, her favorite small stuffed bunny, and her shoes. He then made his way into the main bedroom where he grabbed his own duffel, weapons and all, and expertly dismantled the 'house arrest tracking device'.

The only time he stopped during all of this was to grab a picture of the family from the bedside table and stuff it into the duffel bag before he marched back downstairs. It was just in case. Clint didn't like to deal in what-if scenarios, but where his family's memory was concerned, he figured he needed to cover all his bases.

Lila hadn't moved an inch from her spot, staring at the floor, which was marked with water droplets. As soon as Clint bent down next to her, duffel bags over his shoulder, Lila locked her arms around his neck and he effortlessly lifted her up. One hand held the bunny in a vice like grip, and the other was clenched to his shoulder to keep her daddy from disappearing too. In the back of Clint's mind, he was silently glad that he still had someone left, no matter how awful the thought was, and he was glad that none of the kids had been left by themselves while the rest of the family vanished.

He carried her out to the car, buckled her into her seat, and put the duffels in the trunk. When he closed it, his hands were shaking against the metal, and he took a breath to calm himself before he pulled out his phone. Natasha couldn't be gone too, she just couldn't. If she didn't pick up, he'd call everyone in the contacts list until he got a straight answer from someone.

Clint dialed the number and put the phone up to his ear. Each additional ring meant another few seconds of uncertainty, and a few more doubts that got put into his head. This couldn't be happening. When the automatic voice announced that the number he was trying to reach wasn't available, Clint nearly broke the phone in his grip.

"Don't do this, Nat, you can't do this," he muttered quietly so Lila wouldn't hear. He swapped out phones and tried her other number, waiting and praying. "You had better pick up, damn it," he threatened to the buzzing noise on the other end of the line. When it too announced that the call was dropped, Clint tried again. She had to be there. The signal either went to her phone or to her comm, whichever she had nearest to her, and if she were in the field and still there, she should have had her comm on her.

It rang three more times before finally, a voice picked up on the other end.

"Clint?" It was choppy and full of static, but it was Natasha. Clint sagged against the back end of the car out of sheer relief. "Clint, is that you?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. It's good to hear your voice, Nat," he said quietly, a sad smile spreading across his face. She was there, she hadn't disintegrated.

"You too, Clint." There was a pause, but no true sigh of relief, and Clint knew what was coming. "Please tell me you're not calling about what I think you're calling about."

Clint opened his mouth to answer, but closed it immediately. His silence was the only answer she needed. "Who's left?"

"Just Lila," he got out. "Lila and I…Nat, what the hell happened? They disintegrated," Clint said and clenched his teeth, the image of Cooper turning to him before falling away into ash replaying over in his head.

"Thanos, we…we couldn't stop him. By the looks of things, half of everyone is gone." Each word was weighed down with exhaustion and failure, and maybe even a bit of desperation if Clint could still read it correctly.

"Everyone?" Clint asked, the word stuck in his throat.

"The world population," she replied eventually. He could imagine her, probably pacing just a bit, face a mask of her own as she tried to deal with it all.

Half the world…Clint ran a hand through his hair and cursed quietly. How was the even possible? He took a few months off and all of a sudden, half the world was gone.

"What can we do? What can I do?"

"We're still…we don't know, not yet. You and Lila, you should stay where you are-"

"We can't, no way in hell," Clint cut her off. They couldn't stay in the safe-house, piles of ash marking the family members that were once there.

There was a few moment's pause before she replied, having probably gone through a few different scenarios in her head. "Can you get to the stowed jet and make your way to the tower?" It would be less populated than the base they had been using, and given the fact that Stark was probably on the front lines too, he wouldn't have been there. Clint ran through a map in his head before he nodded even though she couldn't see him. It would take a few hours of driving to get there, but they could feasibly do it.

"Yeah, yeah, we can get there. What about you?"

"We've got some things to figure out. I'll call when I can." Clint didn't ask who the 'we' entailed, mainly because he didn't want to know, not now, who else was part of half the vanished population. Clint didn't add a reply to that because he didn't need to. "Stay safe, Clint."

He said goodbye in a similar fashion and when the line clicked off, he was only left with silence. The phone was put back into his pocket and he took a few breaths, looking out over what was supposed to have been a safe space. When the whole world was a battleground, which apparently it had become, then nowhere was safe. But he supposed safety in numbers was the closest they were going to get.

So Clint did what he did best. He pushed down the memory of Cooper and Laura and Nathaniel, because if he thought about it too much it would choke him, and set about making things right for Lila. She still depended on him, and he couldn't let her down. When he finally got back in the car and told her that she'd finally be allowed to ride in a jet, something she had asked about for years, she said a quiet 'okay' and nothing else. Her little hands were clenched around the stuffed bunny in her lap.

Lila's tear-filled eyes didn't leave the house as Clint drove them away, and even he was looking at it in the rearview mirror until it faded away, hoping beyond anything else that they'd be able to return once they had fixed everything. They had to.

* * *

 _I can't have been the only one missing Clint during all of this, right? And since the mass disintegrating spread to the whole world, it got me thinking, no way Clint's whole family would make it out alright._

 _I've got some ideas to continue this if anyone would be interested, but please let me know so I can tell if people would want to read a bit more from Natasha's perspective and what happens to little Lila and Clint. Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you all so much for your feedback on the last chapter! Apologies for the late update, but AP tests got in the way of writing. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this or not, but let me know if you're interested in seeing any more. Special thanks to genbo, DarylDixon'sLover, MacgirlNS, sesshomarugirl4ever, Hawaiichick, Loonyloops, HeartOfChaos13, Jensmit75, EmPro8, justanavengersfan, cal numbers, and Katie MacAlpine for your reviews, they mean the world to me!_

 _While I've seen the movie twice, I still don't own it._

* * *

The second Thanos had snapped his fingers, Natasha felt a shift in the world. It wasn't one that she could explain if given the chance, but it was just that, a feeling, and after so long, she had learned to trust her gut. This was just one of the many times that she had hoped her gut was wrong.

Barnes was the first to disintegrate without any sign of a warning. He just dissipated into pieces of ash that scattered along the ground, leaving the rest of them a blank, staring, disbelieving mess of a group that kept shrinking. Steve sank down to his knees upon the realization that Bucky was gone, again, and Natasha didn't move to console him out of the fear that movement alone would make her or Steve disappear next.

All around them, people started vanishing. Sam, Wanda, T'Challa, and hell, even the talking, fighting tree, Groot. Just like that, with a snap of his fingers, Thanos had gotten rid of half their team, and that was nothing to say for wherever the other members may have been.

The sounds of the battle had died down, leaving nothing but an unsettling silence behind. How many people were gone? Half of how many? The country? The world? Was it really physically possible to wipe out half of the world with just six colorful, powered stones and a snap of someone's fingers?

They needed to get back to the city to see how bad the damage was, but none of them could get themselves to move. At least, Natasha couldn't until there was a beeping in her ear letting her know that there was an incoming call. Nobody would have been calling her on that frequency unless…it had to be Clint. It absolutely had to be. A signal from Tony's team probably wouldn't reach them on earth. Everyone else on the ground team was either with her or in piles of ash. Which meant that it probably spread to the globe.

She turned away from the scene in front of her and tried to pick up the call, but the connection was too poor that far from the city.

"I'm getting a call, I need to get closer to the city," she said hurriedly. If anyone heard her, they didn't acknowledge it, and before long, she was off and running. The battlefield was desolate aside from piles of ash and a few warriors trying to make sense of what had happened.

Another call came through and again Natasha tried to answer, but it got dropped. If it kept dropping, Clint would think the worst, and she couldn't let that happen. She kept running, the city slowly coming back into view as she made her way towards it. The third time the device in her ear beeped, she clicked it on but didn't hear a click off.

"Clint?" she said quickly, unsure as to if he could actually hear her or not. "Clint, is that you?" She didn't slow down until she heard a blessed answer come from the other end of the line.

It was hard to hear, but it was there. "Yeah, yeah, it's me. It's good to hear your voice, Nat." Natasha stopped in her tracks and let out a sigh of relief. He was alright, he hadn't vanished along with everyone else. They still had another team member out there. She exchanged similar thanks, but then paused. If he was calling right at that very moment, something had to be wrong. Either he was watching the news or…half of everyone. The rest of his family. Natasha closed her eyes, not wanting to think about the fact that his kids, or Laura, could be in piles of ash around the house like the warriors were at her feet.

"Please tell me you're not calling about what I think you're calling about," she said, just loud enough so that he would be able to hear. Natasha waited, and waited for an answer. She waited for him to say that he had no idea what she was thinking, and that he had seen the news and needed to check in. But she knew Clint. She could picture his face, probably trying to work through how to tell her that his family was gone. "Who's left?" she asked eventually.

She could hear the kids calling her 'Auntie Nat' excitedly and her wrapping them up in hugs that she so seldom gave to everyone else. There was Laura and her reassuring voice and open arms. There was the quiet, peaceful farm where Clint and his family had a life. They didn't deserve this.

When the answer came, it took everything in her power to not curse Thanos and the rest of the universe. "Just Lila." It was quiet, said out of disbelief, the voice of a father struggling to understand why his family had vanished. "Lila and I…Nat, what the hell happened? They disintegrated."

So he had been with at least one of them when it had happened. She was going to tear Thanos a new one for putting him through this. Clint was retired. Forcibly retired, but that didn't mean anything, he could come back whenever he wanted to. He didn't deserve this. None of them did.

She took a breath, trying to take solace in the fact that Clint still had someone. "Thanos, we…we couldn't stop him. By the looks of things, half of everyone is gone," she explained the only way she knew how, still looking out over the battlefield. She began to pace, trying to not trample on anyone's remains as she did so. There was a short question and a short answer, and when he asked what he could do, Natasha couldn't help but smile just in the slightest. He was still there, and like the rest of them, he'd do his best to right whatever had wronged the universe. Of course, she tried to tell him to stay safe with Lila, but he wasn't having it. She had expected as much.

"Can you get to the stowed jet and make your way to the tower?" It had been for a worst case scenario, and this pretty much fit the bill.

After a few seconds, Clint affirmed that they'd be able to manage. "What about you?" What about them, indeed. They didn't have a plan of action, or anywhere to start. Thanos had up and vanished along with half the population.

"We've got some things to figure out. I'll call when I can." It was the best she could do, given the circumstances. While they stayed in Wakanda, chances were that the signal would keep up. Unless a second wave of disintegrations took place, they should be able to maintain contact. "Stay safe, Clint," Natasha added, as if he needed to be reminded. But she wasn't there to watch his back, and she couldn't imagine what the cities would be like when half of _everyone_ was gone.

"You too, Nat," came his simple reply. Natasha waited a few seconds before she disconnected the call and turned her head up to the sky before she let out a breath. Get to Clint, or get Clint to them, that counted as a game plan, right? It was better than nothing.

Eventually, she trudged back into the tree line and found the remnants of the team about the same as she had left them. They were partially gathered around Vision's gray body, Steve kneeling down beside it. Natasha, having been in the life long enough, understood the phrase 'when the light went out of their eyes'. She'd dished it out more than enough times. But to see the limp, gray, shell of such a once vibrant being was one of the more unsettling and haunting things she had seen that day. Steve turned his head away from the sight in front of him to look at her as she came back in. In the minutes she had been gone, the adrenaline had started to fade from everyone, and they appeared to have sunken into the ground along with their comrades.

But Steve got up from the ground, a shred of hopeful light in his eyes, careful to avoid Vision as he did so. "Who was it?"

 _Who survived?_ was the underlying question there that remained unspoken but understood all the same. Everyone else moved a few steps closer, broken from their trance by the promise of some slight good news.

"Clint's alright," she said with the slightest of pained smiles. "He's got Lila, they're headed to the tower."

There was a small collective sigh between them, but is was quickly replaced with the ever-present reminder that yes, Clint and Lila were alive…but that was it. It was hard to celebrate a win when they were still missing more than half a family.

"We need to get back to the city," Okoye eventually brought up, the first words she had spoken since her king had turned to ash in front of her, "survey the damage, check on Shuri and the lab."

She was met with a chorus of silent nods before their attention all turned to Vision. They couldn't just leave him on the battlefield. It only took a few moments for Thor to step forward. Managing the axe, he picked up their fallen comrade as gently as he could, and began carrying him out of the forest, the gray cape trailing on the ground behind them. They had lost half their team, but only had one body to take back with them.

The others began to file out as well, there being nothing else to say. Natasha hung back, about to turn to leave when she noticed Steve still staring at where Barnes had been. As if he were in a trance, he slowly moved over to where his friend had last been standing, and picked up the discarded gun that hadn't disintegrated with him.

Steve held the gun carefully, as if it too would vanish if jostled too harshly. He checked it over for damages, because it was the only thing he could do with it, since there was no Bucky left to check over.

"We'll get him back, Steve, all of them," Natasha said quietly, trying her best to be reassuring when even she knew there was probably only the slights chance in all of hell they'd be able to even figure out a way to pull it off. She laid a gentle hand on the captain's shoulder, which had begun to sag with the weight of the day, his injures, and the losses.

Ever the soldier, Steve nodded, though it took a few seconds for him to do so. "We need to make a plan," he stated, but it was absent as his gaze shifted from the gun to Natasha as he turned around and her hand fell away.

"Once we get back to the city, we'll make one," she nodded back. They all needed time to process, she knew that, but there was just so much to go through that she didn't know if they'd ever make it. If they made a plan and could kick Thanos' ass, then they wouldn't need more time to process because their family and the rest of the world would be back intact.

"He's going to pay for this," Natasha added. When Steve's eyes met her own, a bit of the absent look faded away, replaced with the fire that she had come to know so well over the past few years. He looked back down at the gun and changed his grip so that it was more secure, and nodded.

"Damn right," he agreed, "let's go get our team back."

They had no idea where to start, but that had never stopped them before. They'd get in contact with Clint, find out what had happened to Tony somehow, and they'd get a plan together. Then they'd go up against Thanos, defeat him, and save half the world.

With some sort of a mission plan in mind, they too walked out of the forest, paces behind their remaining teammates, the others left behind them with the promise that they'd find a way to right everything.


End file.
